


Experiments in Interschool Unity

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Durmstrang, Harry's thirst wins out over his competitiveness, Immortality, M/M, Tom was born in Harry's time AU, Triwizard Tournament
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 15:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15513264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: The Goblet of Fire names Harry as the Hogwarts champion. It's the second best thing to happen to him that day.





	Experiments in Interschool Unity

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by its-anonpenguin.

“Harry, this could be one of the most important moments of your life.”

“I know,” Harry replies, not bothering to actually turn toward Hermione. He’d finally found the best  position at the Gryffindor table. By craning his head just so and leaning to the left, he can see past the students at the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables to the end of the Slytherin table, where the visiting Durmstrang students sit. The unbelievably handsome guy sitting at the center of the Durmstrang contingent doesn’t notice him staring, but oh does Harry notice him. Merlin, that level of attractiveness should be illegal. “Do you think he’ll be Durmstrang’s champion?”

Hermione sighs and leans against Ron, who kisses her cheek before continuing to enjoy the feast. She says, “From what I’ve seen of his skills during classes and heard from the rumor mill, he sounds like the best choice the goblet could make. But Harry, you’re supposed to be focused on your own chances.”

Harry waves a hand at that. “Either I become the Hogwarts champion or I don’t. But what’s eternal glory compared to the fact that he might be my soulmate?”

“Maybe he’s Neville’s soulmate,” Ron says, rolling his eyes. “Mate, you’ll never know if you don’t go up to him and say something.”

“I haven’t thought of something clever to say.”

Neville looks up from his book long enough to say, “I don’t want him as a soulmate. He looks scary.”

“Scary hot,” Harry sighs.

“No, just scary.”

Harry shakes his head at Neville’s obviously bad taste in men. Tom Riddle is a perfect specimen of manhood. Harry could only be so lucky to have him as his soulmate... It’s true that Harry doesn’t know much about him, but he still finds Tom fascinating. He’s eavesdropped on enough conversations to learn that Tom is actually from Britain, but received a personal invitation from the headmaster to attend Durmstrang, and so he’d chosen that school over Hogwarts. Harry’s probably reading too much into it, but he thinks he saw something flash across Tom’s face as he explained his story, and that there’s a lot more to it than simply that. Tom is academically brilliant; it’s good that Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons students are attending the same classes but being given different assignments according to their different curriculums, otherwise Hermione would be beside herself with jealousy. Not that she’d admit it. Tom is handsome; that much Harry knows from his many hours of swooning over Tom’s looks. Tom might be a future Dark Lord in the making, judging by the way all of his Durmstrang mates always walk half a step behind him and bend over backwards to do everything he says, but no one’s perfect, right?

His seven-year rivalry with Malfoy must’ve screwed up his sense of appropriate, Harry thinks with a sigh. He’s too used to focusing on the biggest dick around, and Tom had somehow knocked Malfoy down a few rungs within hours of his arrival. Harry probably shouldn’t find that so hot, but, well.

“And now, it is time to announce our three champions,” Dumbledore announces, approaching the Goblet of Fire.

Harry just barely manages to shift his attention to it. To be honest, it’s more likely that the goblet will spit out Harry’s name than Harry could be Tom’s soulmate, which says a lot. Even if the words that loop around Harry’s wrist do sound like something Tom might say.

“The champion from Beauxbatons: Flora Delacour! The champion from Durmstrang: Tom Marvolo Riddle!”

Fuck yeah, the ability to stare at Tom while pretending he actually cares about the tournament. There’s no surprise in Tom’s expression, just good old satisfaction.

“And from our very own Hogwarts: Harry Potter!”

Or, even better than watching Tom from the stands, the ability to talk to Tom now that they’ll be spending time together as champions. Harry jumps up, grinning at the cheers from three and a half houses. The half of Slytherin that still likes Malfoy refuses to cheer, while Malfoy and his minions boo at him. Harry, armed with the fact that the actual Goblet of Fire decided he’s better than Malfoy, completely disregards them. He follows Dumbledore to the small room attached to the great hall, where years ago he’d been an anxious first year waiting to be sorted. He’d barely known anything about magic, having grown up with his muggle aunt and uncle after his parents passed away in the dragon pox outbreak that occurred when Harry was only a few years old. Gryffindor became his home away from definitely-not-home and Ron and Hermione became the best friends anyone could have. They alternated between steering Harry away from his terrible decisions or egging him on; this time, Ron had been for the tournament, while Hermione had been firmly against. Still, both of them cheered the loudest when Harry’s name came out of the goblet.

Once the champions are pulled aside, the headmasters, headmistress, and other officials go over the rules of the tournament. There’s barely enough for all of them in the room, let alone a spot to pull Tom aside and say something to him. Harry will take anything at this point just to see if Tom could be his soulmate.

And yet, after a grueling hour, the champions are shooed from the room without even being told to take a moment to introduce themselves to each other. Really, why does Dumbledore have to abandon the professed goal of the tournament—building relationships between the three schools—now of all times?

Tom strides off.

Harry tries to say something to stop him and fails miserably. He can’t just say _hey wait up_ to his soulmate. It has to be important. Amazing. Something that’s worth Tom growing up with the words on his skin.

Harry has never been particularly eloquent.

A few dozen students stayed behind to congratulate Harry personally, including his quidditch team and his two best friends. Ron and Hermione apparently only need to take one look at him to send him sympathetic (or in Hermione’s case, half sympathetic and half oh-my-god-Harry) looks.

“There’s firewhiskey in the common room,” Ron says. “The whole house is in on the party. McGonagall actually formally sanctioned it, though I don’t think she meant for anything alcoholic to be involved.”

Harry could kiss him. “Perfect.”

It’s just what he needs to take his mind off of Tom and onto the fact that he’s actually participating in the Triwizard Tournament. He doesn’t need eternal glory and his parents’ vault had been enough for Harry to rent his own flat the day he turned seventeen, but the tournament still sings like a siren to the Gryffindor in him.

They’re halfway to the tower when Harry hears a familiar voice up ahead. It’s familiar because Harry has been lightly stalking the person it belongs to for a month. As Harry and his friends turn the corner, he sees Tom standing in a group of Durmstrang and Slytherin students.

“This is your chance!” Hermione whispers.

“Go for it,” Ron adds.

Harry’s feet feel like lead.

 _You’re a Gryffindor,_ he tells himself. _You’re a Triwizard champion. You’re a quidditch captain, never mind that there’s no quidditch this year. You’re not half-bad looking._

Tom’s friends or possibly minions stop talking as Harry approaches with Ron and Hermione a few steps behind him. Tom himself says nothing, just raising an eyebrow when Harry stops a few feet away from him.

Words. Harry has them.

He clears his throat.

“Hello—” _good start, now introduce yourself, maybe without having a heart attack_ “—I’m Larry—wait fuck that’s not what I meant to say, Ron stop laughing—I’m not Larry.” Harry can feel his cheeks growing hot. Merlin, why isn’t Hogwarts being kind and just allowing him to sink into the stones and join the corpses in the rumored but never found catacombs beneath Hogwarts? “I’m just going to go now, please continue being hot like burning.”

Harry can’t even meet Tom’s eyes out of complete and utter shame. He’s about to turn around and run the other way, never mind that he’ll be going the wrong direction from the Gryffindor tower, when Tom speaks.

“You’re lucky I already know your name,” Tom says in reply, sounding terribly amused about the situation. But at least it’s amusement, not disdain over the fact that his soulmate is a rambling fool. Tom spares a moment of attention for the others, telling them, “Leave,” before turning back to Harry.

Ron and Hermione, the traitors, leave on their own with a “good luck” and a “if he faints, bring him to Gryffindor tower”.

“I’m not going to faint,” Harry calls after them. To Tom, he adds, “Really, I’m not. I’m just nervous.”

Tom smirks. It horrible, that he looks even hotter like that. “I’ve never had to worry over whether my soulmate would find me attractive, at least.”

“I do find you attractive. And brilliant, and interesting, and maybe a bit evil,” Harry admits. Maybe he should’ve left the last part out, but he likes the considering look Tom gives him. It’s not empty flattery; Harry may not know him well, but nothing he’s learned about Tom has put him off. “It’s not dark yet. Want to go for a walk around the grounds?”

“I could be convinced,” Tom replies, pushing himself off of the wall.

Tom is still too charming, too perfect (so perfect he statistically has to be evil), but Harry thinks that there might still be a flicker of something real between them. “Don’t worry, I’ll convince you.”

As they walk, Harry feels his wrist tingle as the words he’s carried for seventeen years fade away. Somewhere on his body, Tom’s last words to him will soon appear, but Harry doesn’t want to think about that now. As far as he’s concerned, he’s going to spend a lifetime with this man that fate has mercifully, wonderfully, decided to make his.

That said, Harry hopes his last words to Tom are at least somewhat dignified.

(That evening, after a walk that lasts hours and causes him to miss the entirety of the common room party, Harry searches for his new words in the mirror of the seventh year boys’ bathroom. Every inch of his skin is bare, showing only his usual freckles and moles and scars. It doesn’t make any sense, but Harry eventually just shrugs and decides his words are late in arriving. When he mentions it to Tom, his soulmate just says not to worry about it.)

(When Tom looks himself over, he smiles, slow and wide and just a little ruthless. His skin is a blank canvas that he will have many years to work with. Without the appearance of his last words, Tom finally has proof that his experiments with immortality will work out. Harry will never say his last words to him, for Tom will live forever. And Harry, he supposes. His soulmate is a bit of an idiot, but something in him warms at the thought of Harry all the same.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/).


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